73-87 road trip worthy?

[Zoomad75]

As all have said, if the maintenance is done right they can be very road worthy. Just as good as when they were new. If there's a road trip to put some punishment into any truck, try driving 3 hours to get to the trailhead and then wheeling the snot out of it for the next 2 days and driving home. You got to have your stuff set up right or you'll being doing repairs out in the middle of a forest.

Take a look at our trip report from the 4x4 section. DirtyLarry and I took our trucks over 10,000 ft of altitude 4 times with old tech carburators wheezing all the way up and down in the thin air.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=high+altitude

We had an uneventful trip as far as breakage was concerned. Larry's window crank handle stripped out and I peeled my 12 bolt diff cover on a rock. It just dripped and I made it home to fix in my driveway.

It's not to say you can't ever have something break. DirtyLarry was up in the same area a couple of weeks before we went up together. He had a waterpump failure halfway up the trail to Mt. Antero. Funny thing was, the pump wasn't that old and might of had a grand total of a less than a few thousand miles on it. It happens. All you can do is be prepared by making sure everything is ship shape before hitting the road.

If you aren't sure, once you got the regular maintenace stuff done, start racking up some miles on it. Start out small and work up to longer distances. If you find a problem, fix it and start driving it again. Pretty soon you will have caught all the little problems (that grow to big ones 300 miles from home) and your confidence level in the truck will increase. My K5 may look like a nasty POS, but it's never left me anywhere (knock on wood!).

[Roper]

Not only is my 81 reliable but its way better now than when it was first made 27 years ago.
Lately the price of gas keeps me closer to home but I used to use it to haul my horses to extreme remote places on different hunting trips.
Anyway my truck is a daily driver around the ranch here and we are 45 minutes from the nearest small town so that in itself is useing it in remote areas. Example cell phones dont even work here.
Anyway every winter I end up towing rescueing a lot of new trucks.
New doesnt mean better or mlore reliable.
I tell you what is tough. An outfit not so far from here has a fleet of 60s era Dodge Fargo 4x4s. There all daily drivers<ranch trucks>.
Its all about maintanace. Plus my old truck is so simple. Not much to go wrong. Easy to work at.